Palin, who was due to speak at the university in June, has “more demands than an opera diva when she hits the road,” as the New York Post put it. It revealed Palin requires a chauffeured black SUV to get her to and from the airport, first class airfare or a private jet, a pre-approved “deluxe hotel” suite, and two bottles of water placed next to the lectern with “bendable straws.”

Or, as happens, when one company has both parties in it's pocket..."ATLAS BARFED!"

Investigators began examining conditions at the Wright County operation Aug. 12, the day before the company issued its first recall. Inspectors completed their work at that facility Aug. 30, according to documents released by the FDA.

They found:

•Barns with dozens of holes chewed by rodents that mice, insects and wild birds used to enter and live inside the barns;

•Flies on and around the egg belts and hen feeders;

•Manure built up in 4- to 8-foot-tall piles in pits below the hen houses, in such quantities that it pushed pit doors open, allowing rodents and other wild animals access to hen houses;

•Dozens of hens, which had escaped their cages, roaming freely, tracking manure from the pit to other caged parts of the barns;

Investigators checked out the Hillandale site Aug. 19-26. Their tests of spent water from an egg wash station came up positive for salmonella, although it was not clear whether that contaminated water had been used to clean eggs, an FDA official said.

How does it get this bad?

Many of the eggs consumers eat are being produced by a shrinking number of farmers. There are 192 large commercial egg producers in the U.S. that control 95% of all the laying hens, compared with 2,500 in 1987

And Iowa, by far, the nation's largest producer of eggs, naturally has this element...

Iowa has far fewer rules regarding regular inspections of either farm or feed operations. That, along with cheaper land, feed and energy costs, explains why much of the nation's cheapest eggs are being produced in the Hawkeye State, food safety experts and industry critics say.

And again, while the "regulation-free" state is the masturbatory dream of the GOP, the money from the DeCosters goes into both parties pockets...

In Iowa on Monday, state Atty. Gen. Tom Miller agreed to return a $10,000 campaign contribution from Peter DeCoster, Austin DeCoster's son, made in 2005, after he was criticized by his Republican opponent.

And naturally, what lessons do conservatives draw from this disgusting and shameful incident?

Look no further than the comments:

BobTheduck at 2:22 AM August 31, 2010

As with most other food products, if you check the people who perform the work that ws not done correctly (cleaning) you will find illegal aliens NOT doing their job.

Funny how the the White House, which ran a rather impeccable election campaign in 2008 seems to not really even care, or shrugs its collective shoulders, over the 2010 election.

Looking at the latest Gallup latest ballot polling there appears to be a point where the generic numbers really changed in favor of the Republicans. Somewhere around mid-August. Wonder what happened then?

Speaking publicly for the first time since he disparaged the "professional left," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he stands by his comments, has no plans to resign and that he fully expects progressive voters to go to the polls in 2010.

The newest Gallup numbers show Republicans with a staggering 25% advantage in voter enthusiasm.

I'm sure there is some eleventy-dimensional chess move sure to come. For example, Gibbs will soon announce that Obama has cut the budget deficit by having the Government sign an endorsement deal with Purina Brands. Ladies and Gentlemen, say hello to the "Friskies Debt Commission".

Monday, August 30, 2010

So I received a card in the mail today: my polling place has been moved (yet again). It used to be down the street. Then it was around the corner. Now it's totally out of the damned way -- at least a half-mile from here and in the middle of nowhere.

Not sure who's in charge at the Board of Elections, but if I wasn't so sure that this was related to (still more) budget cuts, I'd wonder if someone didn't want me to vote.

There's nothing I enjoy more than writing a post full of sarcasm and/or attempted comedy and I get this...

Well, I take some time off and I miss the latest boring rally for 87,000 people with the body mass of 174,000.

Fat. The last socially acceptable prejudice? I found your opening to be irrelevant and offensive. I’m a liberal, but I ain’t thin. Michael Moore isn’t exactly thin. Dibgy at Hullabaloo has some curves too.

Hmmmm, I’m guessing far more Christians don’t recognize, among other of Beck’s beliefs, that Jesus came to North America for a Farewell Tour.

Good old religious sectarian squabbles. Let’s see if we can’t drum some up! Wonderful stuff.

I do hope this person doesn't get too offended as I noted later...

Au contraire, as a weight-blessed ‘Murican I reserve the right to a glass house. However, in this same post I also make fun of Mormons, the Cardinals, NASCAR fans…oh, and Nazis.

I’m sure if you check back in the next few weeks, I’ll be mocking Republicans, Zima, and invoking images of John McCain using a clamshell filled with bees to shave (ala Fred Flinstone) — because he’s really, really old.

Well, I take some time off and I miss the latest boring rally for 87,000 people with the body mass of 174,000. Say what you will about Nuremberg n the 1930s, but those people did basic cardio (it was all the putsching and pogroming).

It was interesting that Beck picked the Anniversary of the “I have a Dream Speech” and then hid the Lincoln Memorial from spectators so they could more easily reflect in his pasty countenance. I now realize it wasn’t just to give affront to the meaning of the day – it was also scheduled for this weekend because NASCAR Sprint Series took had no race planned.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

After a nice little interlude it's hot again here, but it's fake-hot. Ninety-three degrees on August 29th is not ninety-three degrees on July 3rd, which sucks utterly. The sun's not high enough in the sky to make the heat a real nuisance, and I don't dread this week, which promises 90F+ every day, like I would if it were the second week in July.

Still, just did a few errands outside and everyone in the streets looks weird and/or decrepit. It's as though, as watertiger said, everyone is shedding their summer skins.

So I'm no where near as "Rah! Rah!" about Andrew Cuomo for governor of my perennially-dysfunctional state as I was about The Sheriff of Wall Street. Still, I like this NY Daily News endorsement of Cuomo. And yes, Rick Lazio and the idiotic Carl Palladino have been that awful.

Update: The GC makes a good point when he asks, "Shouldn't Christie fire himself?" Now that would be accountability.

Update: Wow. This is funny. And The GC chimes in again, "Maybe [Schundler] should just repackage his mortgage as a derivative, as he did with Jersey City’s debt. That was his claim to fame after all; he was a pioneer in securitizing municipal debt as a means of “balancing” the city budget."

Well, there's no amount of eloquence I can sum up to fully describe her, so it will have to be this...

"Your mother wanted me to call you and tell you to be careful of bedbugs", my dad told me. She could no longer speak at length and it was the last piece of advice, in a lifetime of advice -- some trivial, some profound -- she ever gave me -- albeit by proxy.

Though it wasn't the last thing she actually said to me. That was "I love you."

And when I finally arrived, five minutes before she died -- or let herself die -- I thanked her for everything and said the last thing she ever heard from me, "I love you."

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Labor union legend Staughton Lynd is getting more serious attention now at 80, then at any other time of his life. Duing a time of neoliberal hubris and all out attack on the middle and working classes, we have the release of not just one book about Lynd but three. And many commentators realize that these discussions of meaningful community action and social justice could not have been published at a more critical time.

Forty-six years ago, during the tumultuous summer of 1964, Lynd was invited to coordinate the Freedom Schools established in Mississippi by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The schools were an integral part of the Herculean effort to end apartheid in the United States and became models for alternative schools everywhere.

That August, Lynd stood with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the Democratic Party convention. Led by Fannie Lou Hamer, the M.F.D.P. had earned the right to represent their state with their blood and their remarkable courage….

In early 1965, Lynd spoke at Carnegie Hall in one of the first events organized in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. A short time later, Students for a Democratic Society asked him to chair the first national demonstration against the war, where he was again a keynote speaker. That April 17, a crowd of 25,000 that was five times larger than even the most optimistic organizers had anticipated turned out in Washington, and what would become the largest anti-war movement in U.S. history was born.

That summer, Lynd helped organize the Assembly of Unrepresented People at which peace with the people of Vietnam was declared. It proved prophetic, for in a few shorts years, a majority of people in the U.S. had declared peace with Vietnam.

Lynd would continue as one of the seminal figures of the 1960's. He was both a tireless organizer and the author of numerous articles in important movement publications like Liberation, Radical America and Studies on the Left. With co-author Michael Ferber, he documented the movement against the military draft in The Resistance, one of the best books about Sixties organizing.

With the need for revitalization of community and social activism, these books remind us of not only what we are fighting for but that it is possible to win.

Let us play the twilight zone game: If you could remove one Republican member of Congress and thus change American politics, who would you eliminate from politics? Extra points for explaining your reasoning. Winners will receive an imaginary Fez delivered by the Ghost of Politics past.

What bizarre and just shake your head and do a double take statement will the right-wingers make on Faux News this morning?

Here are our guesses:

1. Sarah Palin will tell America that the Democrats better look out for the “Mama Wolverines” – lipstick and claws will become their battle cry.

2. An oil industry consultant will discuss how Barak Obama is the reason for the BP Oil spill because he secretly planted an explosive device. There will be many charts, graphs, and displays which “will demonstrate how Obama could have accomplished this very simple act.” The conclusion of the show will feature a re-enactment of how they believed this happened.

4. On Fox and Friends, the Friends will wonder whatever happened to Al Franken’s “funny bone”? Because after all, he as supposed to bring the fun back to the senate.

5. A member of the Reagan family will show up on Huckabee and decry the liberal state of the GOP. They will both talk about how so many members of the Republican party are just “too damn liberal.”

6. A concerned group of Tea Baggers will show up on air waving home-made ‘Merican flags and will bring tea kettles to the hosts because we all know that kettles are as American as apple pie, fully automatic assault rifles, and anti-Obama outrage.

7. Some financial company CEOs will appear on the network decrying the vicious coverage of the liberal media on the financial crisis. The discussion will center on how wrong the media has it when they focus on the “irresponsibility” of these very caring and responsible money managers. At one point, one of the CEOs will break down and talk about how he can no longer afford to jet over to Europe to buy expensive luxury cars.

Standing in the checkout line tonight, I was forced to listen to two angry tea baggers talk about how angry and disrespected they felt because there was no one at their “important” anti-Obama rally today.

A great read about Nativism, immigration, and more by venerable labor historian, Eric Foner. Here is a clip:

Adopted as part of the effort to purge the nation of the legacy of slavery, birthright citizenship remains an eloquent statement about the nature of our society and a powerful force for immigrant assimilation. In a world where most countries limit access to citizenship via ethnicity, culture or religion, it sets our nation apart.

Or at least, we used to recognize citizenship as stemming from more than ethnicity. Today, not so much.

As the media keep beating the drums of this supposed GOP take over, we have to wonder whether the head in the oven response that any thinking person will have to the pronouncement of "Speaker of the House, John Boehner" will be covered as much as “GOP loses demoralize party faithful.”

But while the discussions have focused on useless labels, and political slogans (such as ‘Mama Grizzlies’ anyone?) we are overlooking the gerrymandering that is scheduled to occur this next political cycle in 2011.

The long-lasting consequences of the upcoming elections for the Census-based redrawing of the political geography has gone largely unnoticed by the media talking heads. We need to take a step back and consider the implications of local and state elections for the future control of state legislatures. And with the media focusing on Tea Bagging, raging bears, and Sarah Palin’s holy anointments, can we expect any real discussion of the inevitable redistricting?

I am just curious about something. If all of the media outlets assume that the Democrats are going to lose and lose big in a super smashing utterly devastating soul crushing way without any possible hope of a smidge of dignity because the public is so angry about the economy:

Why do they never mention that Bush created this stupendous clusterfuck?!

No idea where the gentleman's got off to, friends. In the meantime, you'll just have to content yourselves with little old me. Couple of things ...

This will make you sick. Remember that in addition to the Republicans' Thirty Years War on the economy, the BP spill, the anti-not-a-mosque maniacs, the Blue Dogs, two wars, the lying shitbags at Fox and their despicable friends, Larry Summers and the Wall Street dickheads, ceaseless Birther bullshit, preening and pointless jackasses like Maureen Dowd, Carl Hulse, and Adam Nagourney, and everything and everyone else I've left off the list, Obama has to deal with the Koch brothers and their rancid ilk.

Did I mention that I saw American Idiot -- and that ( (and the two headbanging teens next to me) loved it? And no, I didn't have to pay full price, and neither do you.

Note to the NYT: everyone hates Rick Lazio. That's why he has no money and that's why he's going to get crushed.

This weekend I watched The White Ribbon and it was really good. One of the most beautifully shot movies I've seen in a long while.

One thing that drives me absolutely nuts is when someone at work sends me an email and then immediately trots down to my office to say, "Didja get that thing I sent you?" Why are people still doing this -- and should I just go all Milt Waddams on their asses?

Let me tell you how this went down. The writer rode the subway and someone asked about his ebook reader. Then, he heard about two other people who were asked about their ebook readers on the train. Voila! An idea was hatched, a "story" was pitched, and another in a long line of New York Times Fake Trends was born!

Love the headline, too. Not "Ebooks Appear to Make Readers Less Isolated." Not "Ebooks Seem to Make Readers Less Isolated". Not "Some Anecdotal Evidence that Ebooks Make Readers Less Isolated." Just "Ebooks Make Readers Less Isolated".

It comes to ABSOLUTELY no Iowan's surprise that the DeCosters would be responsible for managing to be behind a gigantic tainted food outbreak.

FDA officials said this week that the salmonella outbreak could have been averted had the agency imposed new safety rules before last month. The rules include biosafety measures, refrigeration standards and testing requirements for young hens as well as older birds.

But somehow all that money seems to buy them out of long-term difficulties from either Party.

Sorry about the barfing, the sweating, and that day on the crapper -- but we're rich, you see.

I know the site of the former WTC is a very, very large area, so many things are within a block or two of the site.

But I was wondering, how many blocks away is Bernie Kerik's "do it suite" with Judy Regan to the site? I've always pictured it as like right-across from it. Meanwhile, how close is it to the sacred abandoned Burlington Coat Factory?

I just need to keep the location of all these things clear in my mind -- since we're dealing with the new Jerusalem here and all.

I'm glad that you, y'know, reported on the departure of combat troops from Iraq...God forbid FoxNews do it.

But the 50,000 support troops left hardly indicate a withdrawal, nor John McCain do they denote a 'Victory' that any political leader deserves credit for. Nor, MSNBC talking heads are the 50,000 troops left, just like the troops we have left in Germany. The latter can pretty much stroll about Germany on their off-duty hours with their biggest threat being too much sausage and beer -- obviously lacking in Iraq and their LEAST of their worries in the latter.

I'm not a big fan of Roger Clemons, he appears to be a gigantic asshole, but this smells.

It's one thing for Oliver North to lie about misuse of moneys and illegal acts with the power of the government behind him, it's another to give a person the Hobson's Choice of embarrassment and reputation and a few months in jail.

I'm not encouraging people to lie to Congress, but the choices of who gets prosecuted for it stink.

But if Ground Zero has been made sacred by tragedy, it’s hard to say the same for the Pussycat Lounge one block south of the site. The front entrance of the strip club and bar, which has been there for more than four decades, offers a clear view of the ongoing construction at the World Trade Center site. There weren’t many customers on Wednesday afternoon, when a television reporter stood in the middle of the street filming a report on the Park51 controversy.

Inside, a bartender who said her name was Dasha offered brief remarks against the proposed Islamic center. She said she’s uneasy about organized religion in general.

But Chris, the stripper who volunteered in the Ground Zero recovery, sat on a barstool in a tiny, shiny red dress and defended Park51. “They’re not building a mosque in the World Trade Center,” she pointed out. “It’s all good. You have your synagogues and your churches. And you have a mosque.”

Chris said she lost eight friends on Sept. 11, 2001 — firefighters from the Brooklyn firehouse next to her home at the time. “The people who did it are not going to the mosque,” she said.

As already mentioned, Glenn Beck, last seen going into "true archeological" findings related to Native Americans (ask anyone with a seeing stone and a magic hat) is having a rally on August 28th. Specifically held on the same day and in the same place as Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

Yes, because in the good ol' days of Washington civil rights rallies the original "owners" knew how to march!

But the other news is that now the world's proudest defender of a First Amendment cafeteria plan, Sarah Palin, will be helping Beck (and the NRA, in honor of MLK, of course) reclaim the civil rights movement as it used to be...a place for white conservatives to speak of the joys of saying "N-word", the insensitivity of "Muslims", and talk about the need for funny shows like "Amos-n-Andy" to come back. Hey, while she's at it, maybe Palin can reclaim contralto from Marian Anderson?

First Amendment AND Second Amendment Scholarship:For those scoring at home (and if so, why are you reading a blog?) that's "N-word" use protected speech, "retarded" crime against humanity. And using firearm comparisons again, it's the well-conceived Byron De La Beckwith school of analogies, classy.And about that First Amendment, for them but not for "them":Yes, it's totally about slandering a few million Americans (and a billion plus globally), so I can be a flag-waving hypocrite.

No confirmation yet over whether Jeremy (and really congrats from Jason) made these posts between large helpings of batter-dipped shrimp from Long John Silvers. Maybe they should ask Newt what Leviticus says about adultery (I'm guessing off on a technicality)?

A wacky British-born Internet entrepreneur who wants to be entertained, and perhaps even promote a website, is offering $1 million for someone to flash Barack Obama, on camera. How is this not a great deal?

British billionaire Alki David has one condition for his payout: the word "Battlecam" must be written across the naked thrill-seeker's chest, to promote David's video-sharing website of the same name.

Oh hell, ol' Pam has enough experience in this area to make "Battl-" and "ecam" go in opposite directions, and given the lack of suppleness in space-age polymers this is no mean feat.

Glenn Beck and his Association of SPF-500 users can have their "rally" on the anniversary and in the same place as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" yet demand any member of an entire religious faith cannot build on the site of an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory.

Pat Buchanan, the MSNBC commentator who's no stranger to controversial statements, said today that he thinks Newt Gingrich went "too far" when he compared the developers behind the Cordoba House Muslim community center to Nazis. It's "absurd," said Buchanan. "There is no valid comparison there."

Now at first it appears that Buchanan is condemning Gingrich for his absurd and bigoted statements as unfair to the Cordoba House people...but then I remember that Pat is a bit of a Nazi-apologist. So maybe he's saying it's unfair to the Nazis?

It's funny how many American conservatives have a Winston Churchill fetish. It makes sense I suppose. From colonialism to opposing women voting Churchill was usually wrong, but he got one big thing correct, once. Which puts him one up on most American conservatives. God forbid conservatives have any praise for the man who pretty much saved Britain's ass, Stalin? American and Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt. FDR, or as conservatives know him, the 3rd worst American of all time, right behind Barack Obama (I know, I'm surprised he qualified too) and in a case of life imitating a Simpsonsepisode, history's greatest monster, Jimmy Carter.

But nobody has a bigger Churchill woody than John Bolton and to be a modern Churchill there can be only one John Bolton solution, sh*t must blow up and it must blow up in one place, immediately!

In a familiar it's already too late attempt to demonstrate that the truth is putting on its pants now that the lie has circled the globe a few dozen times -- the Upshot writes that the "Ground Zero Mosque" is 'Holy Roman Empiresque' in its definition -- as it is not at Ground Zero, nor is it a Mosque. They interview several news organizations on their lazy phrasing. It also calls Pam Geller a "conservative" when it fact she is "a complete and utter right-wing nutcase and bigot".

However, there is one unintentional piece of dark comedy to finish the piece:

The Upshot has reached out to Fox News to see if it has specific policies and will update when we hear back.

Yeah, good luck with that. A policy of being lying, douchebags is custom and practice, as opposed to committed to writing.

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists.

Earlier the CIA had 'SOMEHOW' erased all of it's torture porn interrogation tapes of this period. Somehow this one shows up.

I have a feeling we know who the one guy not waterboarded on video is.

BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber blew himself up Tuesday among hundreds of army recruits who had gathered near a military headquarters in an attack officials said killed 60 and wounded 125, one of the bloodiest bombings in weeks in the Iraqi capital.

Monday, August 16, 2010

“Conservatives believe that a civilized society demands orders and classes, that men are not inherently equal, that change and reform are not identical, that in a free society men are children of God and not wards of the state...” he wrote.

At first, the news from Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected of being operatives for Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba.

But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province’s deputy governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes.

The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh’s decrepit Soviet-era air force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid mountains and deserts of Yemen since December.

This two pronged-strategy of bashing American Muslims domestically and firing missiles into Muslim nation's internationally -- "The Krauthammer Strategerium" sure seems like a "real winner" -- no possible blow-back at all.

But it is disturbing that some of the news shows are so lazy that they portray all of the thousands of close relatives of the nearly 3,000 who died via the World Trade Center disaster, now nearly nine years ago, through one person. One person who is obviously entitled to her opinion, but who has been a right-winger since -- and undoubtedly was before.

Six years ago, when three 9/11 survivor spouses were critical of the Bush Administration, they could not be attacked quickly enough by the same people who now attempt to use, and are allowed to use, Debra Burlingame, to be bigots.

It only makes tragic sense that the area so affected by modern terrorism, fruitless unending wars, and ethnic violence -- Pakistan -- would be home of a gigantic environmental disaster.

And as ever, we are either ignoring it or complete misunderstanding it.

As people go without access to clean drinking water and basic health services, deadly cholera outbreaks can spread quickly. Other cases are suspected among the tens of thousands of people suffering from diarrhea and fever.

Revising an earlier official estimate that 14 million people had been affected by the floods, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said Saturday that 20 million -- nearly 12 percent of the population -- had been displaced.

At this point the death toll is estimated to be just under 2,000 people, but with so many people displaced and so little relief a huge cholera outbreak is imminent.

With the Pakistani army taking the most prominent role in the government's relief efforts, concern has grown in Washington that the flood will detract from the country's battle against Islamic militants.

Hard to believe there's ever any resentment of the United States, right Villagers?

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Alvin Greene in the interviews I've seen looks like a guy who could use some serious psychological counseling of some sort -- or at least a job that doesn't involve politics. And he may be a political plant, or just the by-product of the short-comings of the primary process.

In any case he goes on a list of people who probably shouldn't hold office -- so in South Carolina coming up against Jim DeMint that makes two of 'em.

Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene has been indicted on a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student...

Greene was arrested in November after authorities say he approached a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room.

I don't know exactly what happened here, and it certainly is both very creepy and not exactly an effective "dating" technique. There could be more to this that makes it criminal, however, if he literally approached a woman and showed her the cover of a porno-tape or a Hustler, is that really a felony?

John Ensign has sent a fund-raising letter claiming the big bad liberals are out to get him -- apparently for encouraging him to sleep with his best friend's wife. All he had was a boner that needed relivin'? You know if we liberals are that powerful, why don't we have universal health care?

“I have taken responsibility for my actions and worked hard to become a better husband, father, friend, and senator, but I have been accused of doing things I absolutely did not do.”

Where to begin?

That mistake — this is just about sex! — did not lead to a “difficult legal battle.” Ensign is in legal jeopardy not because he slept with his wife’s best friend and his best friend’s wife — that never sounds less grotesque, does it? — but because of how he tried to cover it up, pay off the couple through Mom and Dad and then try to hush up the cuckolded husband by importuning people he regulates to hire him.

I could not care less about whatever bullshit passing as "wisdom" Maureen Dowd is spouting today, but via Firedoglake, we can comment on the fact that Dowd thought the trip to San Francisco for the Prop 8 trial was good for shopping.

After sitting on his hands a while, Obama finally weighed in on an Islamic Community Center's wanton destruction of an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory in the general vicinity of the former World Trade Center.

Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.

Those expectations went out the window early Friday, however, after national data showed Germany, Europe's largest economy, blew away already-strong expectations for growth. Germany posted a quarterly GDP expansion of 2.2% versus a forecast for 1.4% growth.

Germany's growth was fueled in large part by strong gains in industrial production as the export dynamo benefitted from a sharp resurgence in international trade amid strong demand from emerging markets. Read about Germany's second-quarter performance.

France, which grew at a 0.6% rate, also exceeded expectations.

Meanwhile, in those places like Greece and Ireland which went the austerity route Republicans seem to love so very, very much. Not so much:

Greece's economy shrank a bigger than expected 1.5% in the second quarter, flash estimates from the statistics service (ELSTAT) showed on Thursday, and analysts predicted more pain to come as austerity measures bite.

This is what a propagandist, by definition, does: asserts any claim as fact in service of a concealed agenda without the slightest concern for whether it's true. Will the existence of a vast and menacing Iraqi nuclear program help my cause (getting Americans to attack Iraq)? Fine, then I'll trumpet that. Now, however, it will help my cause (mainstreaming an attack on Iran) to claim that the Israelis permanently ended Iraq's nuclear efforts in 1981, thus showing how well these attacks can work. No problem: I'll go with that. How can anyone take seriously -- as a Middle East expert and especially as a journalist -- someone with this blatant and thorough of an estrangement from any concern for truth?

This looks like a job for Rupert Murdoch and Roger Aisles, this Goldberg guy needs to guest on the next nine-dozen episodes of Fox & Douche!

While Republicans cravenly play to their base and the President and much of the Democratic Leadership cravenly stays quiet, there is some good news as pointed out at the Great Orange Satan, the social issues of the "professional left" are becoming the majority viewpoints of we mere amateurs.

Do you think gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to get married and have their marriage recognized by law as valid?49% Yes, 51% No

Do you think gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married and have their marriage recognized by law as valid?52% Yes, 46% No

So, when the average person -- a non-legal scholar -- is asked what they think the Constitution says they are split, but support for the belief that same sex-marriages SHOULD be a Right grows.

And it's growing all the time. The bulk of the support comes from people thirty-five and under who favor it overwhelmingly. So even if the Democratic establishment will not lead, they will still have to get out of the way.

But hey, in the long-run, as their base dies off, the Republicans will probably still have this guy:

Thursday, August 12, 2010

DaughtersJana, 20, and Jill, 19, oversee cooking all the meals, changing diapers, homeschooling their siblings, giving haircuts and washing the clothes they make themselves. Every minute of the eldest girls’ days is taken up by chores, or “jurisdictions,” which Michelle assigns.

But, as Star reports in our Aug. 23 issue, a weary Jana is beginning to crack under the pressure. “For the past few months, I’ve just really been struggling with attitudes toward different family members,” Jana admits, saying she has asked the Lord to help her find strength.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there is an end in sight as Michelle and Jim Bob, who do not believe in birth control, say they are ready for Baby #20. Though the older Duggar boys enjoy the freedom to work outside the home, it seems that the girls don’t have many options to escape the burden of raising their parent's children.

I think there is something to be said for the notion that the very worst base-impulses of the right-wing and hell a great number of xenophobes and bigots of all stripes were probably kept in check when Bush Jr. was President, him being a white child of a powerful white father.

Fried cheese melt,"made with four fried mozzarella sticks and melted American cheese grilled between two slices of sourdough bread. It is served with French fries and a side of marinara sauce." It and the other new items should be available starting Aug. 24.

Of course, conservatives claim to hate affirmative action, so it's a good thing their kids can trade in on their names later in life. Which brings us to Ben Quayle, son of Dan Quayle -- who is to his father as George W. Bush is to his. So give Ben some credit for being able to chew his food.

Ben is running for Congress from Arizona's Third District. When we last encountered him he had a lovely little commercial preaching family values next to his two little girls. Except, of course, they weren't his girls. A few apologies and promises to stay 1000 yards away from schools later, we have some new info about this chip-off-the-old-blockhead.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Florida Goober-natorial candidate Rick Scott (R-Medicare Fraud) was going to hold a press conference saying he was as ethically clean as a newborn white baby in a holiday creche when the completely schadenfreudelicious occurred!

She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?

She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. " 'I can't handle a Jaguar right now.' He said that many times. 'All I want is a Chevrolet.' "

He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

He'd just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he'd given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, "How do you give that speech and do what you're doing?"

"It doesn't matter what I do," he answered. "People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live."

I guess you can chalk it all up to Newt just wants to bone a Chevy Nova, oh and a gigantic fucking hypocrite.

Ah yes, it really does appear that ol' Rahm and company including the President had the GENIUS idea that what you really, need to do is insult your already disenchanted base by spewing right-wing talking points about them.

Good job fellas, makes me want to really get out the old checkbook or work the phone list.

I make no claims to be a policy wonk, I'm just a guy who writes blog posts as therapy. But even I know it is time you guys do nothing but kiss our left-wing asses the next three months. It's what you do to avoid 24 months of checking the kerning on your certificate of live birth and investigating Michelle's socialist triceps. And just think about how it has come to that. It's reached that point even though the competition is a 'Costco Warehouse of Crazy'.

Years ago, Senator Ted Stevens and his wife were involved in a plane crash that killed her. In his later career Stevens did some things that were rather creepy considering that event (declaring the vote NOT to open the Alaska Wildlife Refuge to drilling "the saddest day of my life" considering his wife died in a plane crash seemed a bit much).

Now comes information that the only recently former Senator is feared to have been involved as a passenger on another crashed flight.

More deluges in the greater Des Moines area. I drove by my long-term storage area where I keep the record of my legal accomplishments and deeds and the water was only three feet from overtaking them. So this added few inches of rain is well-timed.

(Einstein shown just after Gandalf tricked him and he turned into stone - per Conservapedia, pic from j.colman at flickr.com)

Yesterday Watertiger made note of a study that America's Generation X was XIIth in the world in college degrees. As I'm at least a decade older than the nation's 25 to 34 year olds let me say "Suck It!", my generation was at least Top 5. And we didn't have Liberty U., Regent U., or even Kaplan U. (go Fightin' Strip Malls!).

I credit Art Fleming'sJeopardy over the inferior Alex Trebek's Jeopardy.

But really is this a decline in our national intellectual resources? We must bring on the analogies that disprove this finding. Conservatives you love analogies (wonder if that plays a role?) show me brains are for thinking, not eating:

Conservapedia founder and Eagle Forum University instructor Andy Schlafly -- Phyllis Schlafly's son -- has found one more liberal plot: the theory of relativity.